Nighthawk RAX80 not visible to Windows 10 laptop

I bought a Nighthawk AX6000 (RAX80) WiFi router. All my devices (TiVo, Roku, iPad, iPhone, Android phone, Surface Tablet) connected without issue. None of my ASUS Windows 10 Laptops with the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 WiFi card could see the SSID being broadcast by the router. Netgear tech support could not figure it out. I exchanged it (thinking it could be one bad router) but the new one behaved exactly the same way.

Ultimately, I downloaded the Intel ProSet diagnostic application, which recommended and installed a new driver. Then I could see the SSID (but still could not connect). After some combination of rebooting the PC and rebooting the router, I am now on line (I had three laptops and had to go through this three times!)

I believe the driver updates Intel released in November 2018 are essential for PCs with this WiFi device to connect to this (and perhaps all late-issue) Netgear WiFi router.

Re: Nighthawk RAX80 not visible to Windows 10 laptop

That is a fair question, and one I glossed over. These two-year-old ASUS laptops have been happily connecting to my older Netgear WiFi router ... I replaced it because it started dropping connections. I was greatly surprised and puzzled at the difficulty with the new router.

Re: Nighthawk RAX80 not visible to Windows 10 laptop

That is an interesting suggestion but I'm probably not going to do the experiment. First, I am extremely wary of breaking something I have finally got working! Second, Intel itself described this update as having been designed to deal with new wireless technologies, so yes, the finger is squarely pointed at Intel, but they did the right thing. Technology changes. They kept up. I wasn't aware.

Re: Nighthawk RAX80 not visible to Windows 10 laptop

I too had this issue with my new RAX80 on one HP laptop with an intel chipset. My solution was to go to Intels site and download the recomended driver update. After update and reboot the laptop saw the RAX80's wifi ssid. I have over 30 devices connecting and that was the only one i had issue with.